Javascript encoding decoding problem

Question

I have the following javascript

 var cst = "\x26";
 var other = $("#D1").html();

And my html has D1 div like the following

 <div id="D1">\x26</div>

Now when I add a breakpoint and see my two variables cst and other. One is shown & and another \x26. Also

cst.length == 1      

but

other.length == 4

I am confused. I need the value of other to be same (&) and I cannot change the Div. I am also using JQuery so I can use $(div_id)

Answer 1

HTML does not use Javascript-style escape strings.

Your <div> actually says \x26, not &.

Answer 2

Try this.

var other = eval( "'" + $("#D1").html() + "'" );